Document Information

Summary of Document

In the wake of the Future of Broadcasting report issued by the Annan Committee in 1977, Director General of the IBA, Sir Brian Young, gave a lecture on 27 June 1977 at the Granada Guildhall. His lecture was one of three scheduled to discuss the future of broadcasting. The file contains a transcript of Brian Young’s speech (missing three pages), as well as a summary of the main points of his speech. There is also a transcript (slightly out of order) of the third speech in the series given by Lord Annan on 4 July 1977. Sir Charles Curran spoke on 21 June 1977, but the transcript of his speech is not in the file. The Authority was upset about the decision regarding the proposed 4th channel, as the Annan Committee recommended against it becoming ITV2.

Also in the file is a report by the Standing Conference on Broadcasting on Broadcasting in the UK: An Agenda for Discussion, which was completed as a synopsis of the evidence the Conference would give to the Annan Committee. As indicated in the report, the Standing Conference on Broadcasting was an organisation established in April 1973, intended to promote the public interest, and formed by the Acton Society Trust. The Conference was made up of 50 men and women from a broad range of fields including, academia, broadcasting, journalism, religion and politics. The report formulated its philosophy of broadcasting (see document below), which advocated analysing creative conflicts between different social actors to determine how to formulate public broadcasting.